on the road..or whatever the right side number is that ESPN uses to hurt our recruiting every big game we play. They run that graphic all week leading up to the game, and discuss it constantly during the telecast. As a hokie fan - I just LOVE being reminded that we are 0-7000 against the AP top 10. Let's hope we can get the "1" on that graphic Saturday and maybe they will talk about it less.
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I think you're thinking of top 5. Our numbers aren't that bad against top 10 teams
Well, they're not as bad as against the top 5 (32 games, 1 win), but I'm not sure I'd call them good...
Out of 59 games vs top 10 teams, we've won...9. So we've only won about 15% of our games vs top 10 teams.
Right, which is why I didn't call them good. I said they're not that bad. A winning percentage of .153 is way better than .031.
Not to mention if you take out those 32 games vs top 5 teams, we're 8-19 (.296) against #6-10. Still not good, but not terrible.
Interestingly enough we're 0-10 all time against #7, which is the ranking we've faced the most out of all the top 25.
As of 2010 there was only one school in the country with a winning record against top 10 teams, that was USC at 76-74-7, every other team had a losing record and Arizona at #28 was the last team having won 25% or more of their games vs top 10.
We were 8-46-0 which put us at #60. So we're basically middle of the pack against the top 10 and honestly the only thing really embarrassing about it is that UVA was #54 (with the same number of wins, but fewer games played).
This is from early 2011, so thru the 2011 season...just for fyi purposes.
Let's look at some other school's records against top 5 teams:
UVA = 1-20
UNC = 1-40
NCST = 1-27
WVU = 1-38
Miami = 18-42
ND = 21-64
USC = 19-53
OhioSt = 9-45
Clem = 2-32.
Are these the record against top ranked teams when they played or in the final standings? Because Virginia Tech was 1-0 vs the #1 team in the final standings in 2014.
The records vs teams at the time they play is mostly meaningless. The B1G and SEC powerhouses (and ND) have historically gotten a lot of mileage out of beating overrated foes early in the season.
On the flip side, a decent percentage of VT's losses to highly teams ranked at the time they played were to teams that actually ended up #1 in the standings or undefeated) (2000 FSU, 2001 Miami, 2003 USC, 2003 Auburn, 2007 LSU, 2009 Bama, 2014 OSU, 2016 Clemson), as well as a bunch of teams that ended up otherwise very high in the final standings.
Going off memory, VT hasn't lost that many games to highly ranked teams that ended up going in the tank.
Your examples are not helping your point. A lot of those games were against teams in the top 5 that stayed in the top 5 for most of the season. Two of them were in bowl games, and two of them were in the final games prior to bowl season.
1999 FSU (played in 2000) - They were #1 when they beat us in the national championship.
2001 Miami - #1 when they played us, their last game before the national championship.
2004 USC - #1 the entire season. (We didn't play USC in 2003)
2004 Auburn - #3, and undefeated, in the bowl game. (We didn't play Auburn in 2003)
2007 LSU - #2 when they beat us, won national championship
2009 Alabama - #5 when they beat us, won national championship
2014 OSU - We actually won this one.
2015 OSU - #1 when they beat us, ended at #4 (I think this is the game you were referring to above)
2016 Clemson - #3 when they beat us in ACCCG (final game before CFP), won national championship
his point is that some of the teams with the best record against top5's get plenty of victories over overrated teams that end up not being top5 by seasons end.
For example, let's say Alabama gets 'credit' for beating #3 LSU on September 27th but then LSU winds up finishing the season 8-4 (4-4 conf) and unranked at #35. At the time of the game LSU was #3 so Alabama's record against top5 teams improves, but LSU actually wasn't that good and the #3 ranking was erroneous.
Meanwhile #9 VT loses to #4 Alabama who then goes 12-1 and wins the BCS.
See how the games are different?
The other poster is curious to see a tally of teams' record vs opponents who finish in the Top5 at the end of the season, not the record vs Top5 at the time of the game.
Like he said, MANY of VT's recent Top5 losses were to eventual national champions or otherwise ranked #1-#5 at the end of the season, while many of the programs with lots of 'top5' wins were actually wins over mediocre, maybe even good, but not great teams.
I was reading it as looking at teams that rose in the rankings after they played us, which would make our final season top 25 number look better.
Like how we don't get as much credit for beating OSU because they were #8 at the time, even though they finished #1.
I believe they are "at the time" versus ranked opponent.
Take a look at those records. Which means they aren't getting that much mileage with a win...Or even winning a quarter of the time. anOSU was 9-45. That's 17%. As a blue-blood team that has won a National Title recently, they aren't setting the world on fire.
So teams that are in conferences that are typically over-rated or start 4-0 by playing patty-cake OC get wins over "top 5" teams that end up 3-4 in P5 plays will have better stats than those in conferences who without.
I thought it was 0 fer against ap top 10 on the road? Like I said, whatever stat that would hurt recruiting the most is what espn runs. They don't run it for any other school- like UVA for example when they play Clemson, that stat is not run all week. And if UVA beat a top 10 team on the road it was a LONG time ago.
2014 Ohio State was 8.
04 Miami was #9 if I remember correctly.
That's because LOLUVA is irrelevant and expected to suck against good teams
Great Point, but WVU is 0 fer against Top 10 teams on the road too IIRC? And that stat is not on the screen in every one of their "big" games
When was the last time WVU had a "big" game?
Do games against unranked teams with a losing record to secure your spot in the NCG count? If so I'd say about 10 years.
HI Fellica
You think ESPN really is that invested in VT's recruiting that they care enough to sabotage things?
Never underestimate the depth of our fanbase's persecution complex.
I'm not judging, I love a good conspiracy theory. Okay, I'm judging a little.
Which is odd because I always thought ESPN loved us.
They gave a great farewell to Beamer, love our Enter Sandman entrance and are always appreciative of our fans and support.
Perhaps you can shed some light as to why prior to last year's ACC CG and this years game with Clemson, that ESPN's scroll all week listed VT's record vs. the AP top 10? I watch a lot of ESPN and college football and I never see Georgia Tech's or WVU's or UNC's or Maryland's or any other team for that matter - AP top 10 record run on the scroll and talked about it ad naseum throughout the broadcast. Curious to hear your theory why?
How many times have those teams played a team in the top 10 recently? And how many times have those teams actually been a threat to the top 10 opponent?
You realize how ridiculous this sounds, right? If ESPN were trying to subvert our recruiting they wouldn't trump up Enter Sandman before every primetime home game and they'd have stiffed us for Gameday.
Honestly, I don't watch enough ESPN to know whether or not they actually run unfavorable vs. top 5 or vs. top 10 records for VT and VT alone (spoiler alert, they're unfavorable for almost every team anyway), and I'm not going to rewatch the Clemson game right now just to see how many times they actually bring it up in order to refute your second point.
Probably because they have it out for us.
Yeah if they wanted to subvert it, they'd do something like I don't know maybe play another song over the entrance.
Hmm?
They did what?
Oh ok..
Nevermind...
Bad production is actually active subversion of our program's recruiting efforts. You got me.
heh, I was just joking around. Guess I should have added a /jk? I don't believe ESPN is out to get us... I just thought it sucked that they talked up Enter Sandman and then overplayed it with some techno crap.
The only primetime home game that has been on an ESPN channel is the Clemson game, and they went all out on showing Sandman.
The games where Sandman has been played over were on ESPN2 (afternoon) or ACC Network (primetime), so the leading theories of running into rights issues that cost money or incompetence in the control room are still very plausible.
Yeah, that totally had to do with subverting VT's recruiting and nothing at all to do with having to pay extra money to broadcast a song that they do not have the rights for at a time when the network is notoriously hurting for money. /s
Because it's a really bad record?
*clears throat*
Saturday is our chance to go 1-0.
Way to complain about publicising our bad record while publicising our bad record, falsely I might add.
Have not beat the odds. I guess in reality they are suppsed to win if they are top 10 and opponent is not.
ESPN is drinking the Miami Kool Aid hard because they want Notre Dame/Miami for gameday...in addition to the fact that all their football "experts" handed Miami the Coastal weeks ago. I hope the Hokies piss in ESPN's Cheerios and shut these people up.
Can you blame them? I mean obviously I as well as everybody else on here want to go dominate Miami. However its obvious they want that Miami vs Notre Dame game on the slate, it would be a huge draw, it had hype last year when both teams were 4-4 and 3-5 respectively. The packages they could set up from the Grave Dancing on Gerry Faust to the "Fumble" at the 1 yd line it would be bananas.
A huge *TV* draw. I wonder how many Miami fans would actually show up if they got Gameday... When is the last time Miami had Gameday???
According to Wiki it was September 4, 2006 vs FSU which was actually a Monday night game.
I don't even count those Monday visits as true GameDays. And Wiki doesn't even list that appearance in the list of locations, even though it counts that as the last hosted date.
Miami has hosted five times:
-October 8, 1994 (FSU)
-December 5, 1998 (UCLA)
-October 7, 2000 (FSU)
-November 4, 2000 (VT)
-November 17, 2001 (Syracuse)
All well before they left the old stadium.
I'm sure it would be a logistical nightmare for the crew to set up, as well as people to get to gameday/want to go with how early you have to get there. I can't imagine what it is like to have a stadium it takes 30mins-1 hour to get to and what having gameday would do.
I don't see how the logistics would be so bad. They could set up anywhere in Miami and it would look good on camera. And to do a show on campus in the morning for a game in the evening wouldn't be so difficult. They could even do the show from campus for a morning game and probably draw more students then the game would. Its not like anyone actually goes to the games.
Don't worry, after we beat them by more than a score, ESPN will flip script about how Miami was never that good, barely won games, and VT should've beaten such a bad time, why should we even count it a signature win etc.
This is exactly what I'm dreading...oh well, we'll get respect when we avenge our loss against Clemson in the ACCCG...er...I mean...let's go 1-0?
They probably will, but Miami ='s Pageviews, which is good for business and when they are the leader of the pack it is good for business and with a major rivalry on the horizon. Moreover to play devil's advocate if ESPN does that how is that any different from people on this page saying miami is over ratted and ain't played nobody Pawl, yet will say we deserve a top ten spot should we beat them?
efff ESPN! I stopped even watching the show. you can make stats look however you want them too. everytime bud sees that BS......
at some point they will start changing those numbers to under Justin fuente and itll look a hell of a lot better. no disrespect the to the man the mith the legend much love coach beams but get those old ass stats the eff out of here
I don't think I remembered how hard Beams got clocked. Say what you want. The man has a hell of a chin.
I think ESPN is really hoping for Miami vs UGA game in the playoffs. Honestly, if I didn't hate Miami so much, I'd be rooting for this too. I'd love to see Richt beat up on his former employer.
UGa would beat Miami this year and it wouldn't even be close.
This came up in a previous post and I did some research just looking at 1999-2011, when the Hokies were consistently a very good team. We went 1-12 against top five teams while ranked in the top 15 for most of the games and outranking opponents in some of those as well. I also included reference records of other teams including Auburn, WVU and a couple others that had much better records in that same time span than us. Nobody is expecting a winning record against top 5 teams, and the stat is misleading since it includes games in the 60's when we were clearly overmatched. But as a perennial top 15 team we went 1-12 and that should be concerning.
In recent decades (getting old), a lot of these games against Top 5 or Top 10 teams came in weeks 1 and 2. USC, LSU, BAMA, BAMA, anOSU (what a glorious win that was), BOISE (were they top 10 to start the season that year?), etc. A lot of it comes down to tough scheduling by VT, and rarely has VT ever been at its best form early in the season and non-conference slate. You can argue that it is early int he season for the other team, but those are championship caliber teams, defending nat'l champs or eventual nat'l champs in several cases. To beat a team like that, VT would have to be prepared to play its best game and hope that the other team does not play its best game.
1-12, 1-32, whichever stat you want to use. It looks bad, definitely to only have 1 of those be a win. But if you go and look at each of those games individually, how many should we have won? Probably not too many more than 1.
To answer your question yes, Boise State was ranked 3rd at the time
1999: #2 VT lost to #1 FSU
2000: #2 VT lost to #3 Miami
2001: #14 VT lost to #1 Miami
2002: #18 VT lost to #1 Miami
2003: #10 VT beat to #2 Miami
2004: NR VT lost to #1 USC and #9 VT lost to #3 Auburn
2005: #3 VT lost to #5 Miami
2007: #9 VT lost to #2 LSU and #9 VT lost to #2 BC
2009: #7 VT lost to #5 Alabama
2010: #13 VT lost to #3 Boise State and #12 VT lost to #5 Stanford
This was what I found in my original research. Yes, some of them were the beginning of the season and that can kind of be unfair, but two of those were bowl games, one an ACC championship, one national championship and the miami games were regular season play. I'm not saying we should've won them, but that's what upsets are for. You're not supposed to win them but you find a way to pull it out. That's the point of the statistic. Auburn during this time was 4-6. They were a great team some of those years but not so good that they should've won 4 games against top 5 opponents.
two3 of those were bowl games,one an ACC championship,one national championship and the miami and BC games were regular season playTFIFY
edit: just saw your post above. never mind.
To add on to the games you provided above, the lines for each of these games is as follows:
99: FSU (+5)
00: Miami (+9)
01: Miami (+14)
02: Miami (+17)
03: Miami (+3)
04: USC (+17), Auburn (+6)
05: Miami (-6)
07: LSU (+11), BC (-3)
09: Bama (+6)
10: Boise (+1), Stanford (+3)
We went 4-9 against the spread in these #5 games.
When I ran the numbers for after last season, 3 teams have .500 records or better:
http://www.thekeyplay.com/content/2017/january/15/big-eleventy-2016-season
We rank dead last in W-L vs top 5 teams (when compared to 18 other successful peer schools); the next worst team is Tennessee with a 6-23 record.
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I'd be curious who the QBs were in many of those match ups, I know for sure we went up against a few good ones. Not that it is the be all, end all of why we lost against top 5 or 10 teams, but it didn't hurt.
Chris Weinke, Ken Dorsey, Matt Leinhart, Jason Campbell, Matt Flynn, Matt Ryan, Kellen Moore, and Andrew Luck were all pretty good college QBs.
Fuck Matt Ryan
Not to mention some of the other skill position talent on those teams.
You, I like you
I never understand why Tech folk are snarky at ESPN.
They are obviously going to hype up an undefeated Top 10 Miami team. They're obviously going to mention our average at best record against Top 10 teams. That doesn't mean they have something against us.
I'd argue they love us. The media coverage around Beamer's farewell was pretty great considering how mediocre we were during that time. They love our Enter Sandman entrance. No other entrance gets the media coverage it does. They (at least the Gameday crew) are always appreciative of our fanbase and support. They gave us nothing but praise for the Fuente hire. ESPN always hypes up Thursday night games when they involve us.
So please tell me again why ESPN is out to get us??
ESPN has done a lot more good than bad for VT.
See Thursday nights in Lane, which basically created the Terror Dome.
Not to mention the love GameDay has for us as well.
First comment I've made on the site guys, glad to be apart of the TKP squad finally, I spend tons of time here on the site during the week, and always enjoy the work that French, BAG, Fireman, and all the other notable guys do on the site.
With that said, I wonder if I'm the only one worried about this Miami game, I've looked at tons of comments throughout the week here on the site (my weekly routine as mentioned) and I can't help but feel everyone is going into this game, chalking it up as a win, and wondering how we will make our way up the polls to be in the final four, if just because Miami has eeked by all season. I'm not trying to play Debbie downer on my first post here, but I just feel that 1-0 approach is vital this week, for both the team and the fan base. We can look ahead all we want and say GT is the scary team, I'm looking at Miami and asking myself have they've done what Tech has done in the past, played down to the competition? If that's the case, we certainly have a battle on our hands this Saturday.
Personally I'm doing all I can this week to focus on Miami, I'll worry about GT and the chop blocks from hell later on, and I'll certainly worry about the polls shaking out way down the line. Let's root our boys on to a 1-0 record this week, and go from there. I hope I'm wrong, I hope we plaster Miami, can't stand Miami, but all I want is a W after this week.
Last but not least, let's turn that U upside down, and leave them saying "the U? The WHO?, nah, they ain't bak yet" Go Hokies!
I trust Fuente has the players that will be on the field prepared for this game. Yeah, there's some swagger up in here, but luckily we aren't the ones playing the game.
I'm with you nerf, I'm expecting that Fu has them prepared for the game for sure, I'd venture to say he's even pointing at that Clemson game, and saying that this game is a means of proving "we belong," after that hard fought loss. I'm certainly thankful we don't have to play the game, because come game time, my swagger definitely on 100!
I dont think anyone has really been saying its going to be an easy win, but Tech is definitely capable of coming home with the W.
I'm certainly no expert, but i've watched a few of Miami's 'condensed' games that the ACC has on youtube, and had a few main takeaways that i think will affect the outcome of the game:
I think it'll be a close hard-fought game and it definitely seems to be a case of strength-vs-strength on both sides of the ball for both teams, but I think the difference maker is going to be Tech's Dline and the ST play.
I haven't watched any Miami games completely, I've caught bits and pieces though, and certainly have seen the highlights of the "eek-it-out victories" I think it's going to come down to stopping Rosier and Berrios, and keeping their run game in check. Our OL certainly is going to have to play big too to give the receivers time to complete their routes and to keep JJ standing up. If there's substance to what you're saying about their susceptibility to slants, I'm certainly hoping Cam and Savoy exploit that, this game can't come soon enough!
The confidence makes me nervous as well. Its like the 3 point advantage by Vegas has over inflated the confidence. However, if we were playing a 25th ranked Miami team with the same Vegas spread, we would all be preparing for a dog fight.
That Vegas spread, is what terrifies me the most, every part of me hopes the players and the coaches have no idea of that spread, but I know our current world where we have information available to us at a moments click counters that hope.
the line has since moved to VT (-1). Not exactly a spread that will fill you with overwhelming confidence...
The players need to have a "go 1-0 this week" mindset. I'm gonna be overly optimistic and draw great confidence from Miami's disappointing performances to date.
Bud Foster NEVER peaks ahead in the schedule. I doubt they spent any time on the option this week to make sure their focus was 100% on Miami.
I don't think anyone is looking at playoff positioning or rankings, they know how critical this is to our ACC aspirations. I'd be more worried about a sneak peak type scenario if we are 9-1 or 10-1 with Pitt and UVA left.
Miami will get VTs best and most focused effort.
Whelp
Enough. We all know how bad it is. So bad that I know I was at the only top 5 win we had.
What do you want. We missed plenty of chances to knock off top #2 teams (Fuck Matt Ryan) and have been blown out in plenty enough of those other games (LSU the same season) that it is what it is. Haters gonna hate and the numbers won't improve until you win games where you are the favored team on the road as a lower ranked team. Vegas sees it different, even if E$PN wants Miami.
Miami is about as crap a top 10 team as there is, its all about the revenue. If they had a UCF on their helmet instead of the U, they wouldn't even be in the top 15, but here they are.
We are flawed offensive team that can't run the ball, but our defense can take over. Blow these guys out and VT has another top 10 win on their playoff resume for this year, has a real shot of going 11-1 and getting a chance at Clemson or NC State in the ACC title game.
I still think we get left in the cold because we don't have any national titles like the other guys. The first one is the hardest one to get, after that ESPN is ready to tongue you down and help get you in again because you are a national brand.
Remember how hard Oregon had to scrap to get national respect and it took Chip Kelly genius and Nike money for them to crack the old guard of blue bloods. VT might not have the cash for that, but we got the coach.
We are not USC, Oklahoma, Texas, OSU, Bama, or Notre Dame. But if you want respect, change the perception by winning games IN WHICH YOU ARE FAVORED.
Whelp.
I too enjoy going back through old threads and dunking on people after the fact.
Wasn't dunking on him. Just the notion.
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